It’s Not the Heat, It’s the Humidity: Your Next Water Source

Access to clean water has become a serious issue in many areas of the world. In some areas waterways are polluted. In others, water is brackish or saline. And many areas have developed to the point that they are stressing their water resources. In the US Southwest, sources of water are rigidly controlled by governments and water authorities. Phoenix is even considering pumping water all the way from Mexico. And while surface water has long been contentious, we are now depleting aquifers at an alarming rate as well.

But what water source has 37,500,000,000,000,000 gallons of water at any time, is rapidly replenished through natural cycles and is, literally, everywhere? It’s the atmosphere. If all water usage on earth drew from the atmosphere, it would only use 0.0002% of this source and that source would be replenished through the constant hydrologic cycle of evaporation and rainfall. In fact, it would be replenished about 3 times a month. This is faster than surface water and much faster than the replenishment of aquifers when they are under stress.

Is there a way to pull enough water from the atmosphere to provide for our needs? The answer may depend on local conditions, but is likely to be ‘YES’. There are currently off-the-shelf capabilities from companies like Tsunami Products or Aquaria that provide clean, potable water from the atmosphere and can be installed in a home. The systems are effective when humidity is above 30%. Temperature can also affect the amount of water that is pulled from the air.

The equipment that pulls the water from the air operates in three stages. First the air is filtered to remove the impurities, dust, and pollution.

Then the cleaned air is run through condenser coils that cool the air to the dew point. The key to making this technology work is in the approach to condensing. We have all seen our air conditioners generating lots of water unintentionally. These condensers are like that but on steroids. They are extremely efficient at removing the water from the air. Until recently, the technology was not efficient enough to generate enough water to be worthwhile. But now reasonably sized units exist that will provide several hundred gallons a day. That’s enough to provide the potable water needs for an average home. Each company that makes these units has their own proprietary methodology to condense the air.

The third stage of the process is to filter and purify the water. This is done using standard water filtering approaches. The end result is clean potable water. In fact, the water is cleaner than most tap water and doesn’t contain the chemicals common to most city water systems.

The systems are typically installed outside individual homes and can provide the potable water needed for the homes, reducing demand on city water systems and their aquifers. But in our reimagined community, we want to provide water for the whole community, not just individual homes. Larger machines using the same technology can provide larger amounts of water. And in some parts of the world, the humidity is always high so that the machines can reliably generate all the water needed as it is needed.

But in parts of the world where humidity sometimes drops below requirements, this technology may not be reliable enough often enough. While the companies advertise 30% as the lower limit where the water can be generated, there is reason to believe that some water can be generated at humidity levels substantially lower than that.

Just as excess power can be stored in batteries or kinetic sources, excess water, generated when humidity is high, can be stored in tanks or reservoirs for use when humidity is low. Water from atmosphere may be sufficient to supply a community, especially as technology improves. But it can certainly augment other water sources like surface water or aquifers to reduce stress on existing water sources and stretch them to support additional population.

Water is one of the critical infrastructure elements for a self-sufficient community. And atmospheric water generation is an intriguing new technology to provide this critical resource to our reimagined community.